Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Thank you for all you've contributed to John Eager Howard's
school design process. We've come a long way in the past year in building a
school that truly reflects the beliefs and values of the
neighborhood.

Many of you attended the school design review on February
11th and got to see the 3 schematic drawing that were presented by Cho Benn
Holback and Associates. We are now in the process of waiting for the official
recommendation from BCPS, and will keep the community posted as we hear
more.

In the school design, there is the opportunity to set aside 3,000
square feet for community space. The idea is for these spaces to be open to the
entire community (regardless of if you have children in the school or not), but
need to be programmatically focused. Can you all help us gather feedback
regarding your interests in specific supports, resources, and opportunities by
sharing this survey link below or collecting paper surveys?

What
can be done to encourage local business to set up shop on North Avenue?

How can
a new design help connect the communities along North Avenue in positive ways?

ALL ARE WELCOME!

WE NEED YOUR INPUT!

The workshop for the stretch of North Avenue from Charles Street to
McCulloh is scheduled for:

Wednesday,
7 May; 5-9 pm

John Eager Howard
Recreation Center

2100 Brookfield Avenue

Baltimore, MD,
21217

A free dinner will be served

Workshop dates and locations for
different stretches of west North
Avenue are below.

We live and work in a wonderful part of Baltimore City.This is an opportunity for the communities and institutions along West North Avenue
to work together to create a North
Avenue streetscape that best serves our
communities, and in the course of working together, get to know each other as
neighbors, and build new, creative relationships between our communities and
institutions.

Even when you see someone frequently, and you think you have
fixed them in your personal landscape, you don’t always know what’s really deep
inside them.At last night’s inaugural
Third Thursdays in Reservoir Hill gathering there were some revelations.

Every Third Thursday we will hold a café style gathering
where neighbors and friends can mingle and meet new people over good food and
entertainment.Each month we will
feature Central West Baltimore artists and businesses.This time, Baltimore Poets’ Society held a
Poetry Slam, and Liam Flynn’s Alehouse and The Open Plough Project provided the food.

Anthony Pressley, president of the Baltimore Poets’ Society
and Director of Community Resources at Druid Heights CDC was Master of Ceremonies, as well as one of
the published poets who read that night.There were many fine offerings, but for all you Reservoir Hill residents
and supporters, there were two people you may have seen around a lot, but
probably never knew they were poets.

Carl Williams works at John
Eager Howard
Recreation Center.If you go in and out of the recreation center
much you’ve seen him. We here in the RHIC office certainly have.But his powerful poem gave us a privileged peek
at a part of himself we never knew about.

The same can be said of Chelsea Monet from New Lens.We always knew Chelsea was creative, but her depth as a
young poet came to us as completely new side of her.

Then there was this amazing young man. Nine year old Amir Brown read
his own poem on a lesson “drawn” from his own crayons, that everyone is needed
to draw a full picture of the world we live in and want to create.

Anthony Pressley and Karen Griner-Smith (also a published poet who read
that night, and grandmother to Amir), accompanied by Roger Murray on keyboards,
concluded the evening by leading everyone in a group singing of Lean on Me.

Ernest Hemingway referred to the “iceberg theory,” that is
to say that the crux of a story rests below the surface. The part we see is
only the tip of the iceberg.Somewhere
in the swirling waters of life below what we see moves a much larger story,
hidden from view, and only hinted at in fleeting moments.All these folks gave us a look at some of
what lies beneath the surface part we see of them, and for that we thank them
all.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Friends and Neighbors, Join us for the first Third Thursday in Reservoir Hill gathering. Every month we'll feature different Central West Baltimore artists and businesse. Tonight Baltimore Poets' Society puts on a Poetry Slam, and Liam Flynn's Alehouse offfers up hearty vegetarian and vegan soups. There will also be amazing musicians, and some of the poets will be selling their books.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

At the April Reservoir Hill Community Meeting participants
discussed the need for police foot patrols in Central West Baltimore
neighborhoods and steps to take in getting them.Rebecca Nagle, Coordinator for No BoundariesCoalition led the discussion.We were
joined by Central District Commander Major William Marcus, and Sgt. Michael Alessi and Officer Robert Horn.

The Major was very participatory in the conversation, and
very supportive of instituting foot and bike patrols.Sgt. Alessi reported that the department
still had a number of bikes in good condition, and that the bike patrol program
had been disbanded due to budget issues.The Major expressed that budget constraints have been and remain an
impediment to the use of foot and bike patrols.Consequently a department-wide strategic decision is needed to support
long-term, effective foot and bike patrols. During the discussion, neighbors also raised the issue of improving street lighting, including replacing defective lights.

Two outcomes from the meeting were:

1.Sgt. Alessi will get a lighting survey done in
Reservoir Hill over the next week to identify where street and park lighting
needs to be replaced or repaired.

2.Major Marcus said that he will over the next week
explore how use of over-time pay that is currently in their budget could be
used to support temporary foot or bike patrols while this effort to establish a permanent foot and bike patrol operation is developing.

In the meantime, No Boundaries Coalition is forming a
Central West Baltimore safety committee to pursue advocacy for foot and bike
patrols.

2.Linden
Avenue and North Avenue north to Chauncey Avenue, including the John Eager
Howard Park and German
Park.

We are pursuing a working session that will include Police
Commissioner Anthony Batts, Central District Commander Major Marcus, and Central
District Commander Major Robert Smith.

The conversation over foot patrols and fostering a safer
Central West Baltimore will continue at the No Boundaries Coalition meeting on
8 April at 6:00 pm at St Peter Claver Church 1526 N
Fremont.We will be joined
by representatives from the Mayor's office, city council, Western District, and
Central District.

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